Welcome to this year's Official Smogon Tournament, the ninth installment of one of Smogon's most prestigious tournaments. The OST is one of Smogon's longest standing traditions in tournaments and has crowned many great Pokemon players as its champions across three generations. Over the next few months, hundreds of players will compete to the best of their ability as they attempt to join the exclusive ranks of the OST trophy holders. Only one of those players will succeed in their journey and earn the recognition that comes with their victory, along with the iconic OST trophy.

This year, however, there will be more on the line than just a prestigious trophy. In addition to the trophy and the bragging rights that come with it, the winner of the tournament will receive a brand new Nintendo 3DS, and second place will receive a copy of Black 2 or White 2! The top four players will also receive an exclusive Smogon T-shirt.

Matches are to be played on Pokemon Showdown! If both players agree, matches may also be played on Pokemon Online 2.

Standard Rules and Clauses

Sleep Clause: A player cannot put two or more different opposing Pokémon to sleep using attacks that induce sleep to opposing Pokémon.

Species Clause: A player cannot have two of the same Pokémon on their team. For example, a player cannot have two Koffing on his or her team.

Evasion Clause: A player cannot use the moves Double Team or Minimize in their Pokémon's movesets.

OHKO Clause: Players cannot use Horn Drill, Guillotine, Sheer Cold, or Fissure in any of their Pokémon's movesets.

Team Preview: Players must turn on the Team Preview feature where players can view the opposing team's Pokémon and choose their lead Pokémon.

Timer Clause: If a player exhausts the timer, he/she loses.

Uber Clause: Players may not use any items, moves, abilities, or Pokemon that appear on Smogon's OU Ban List. If the tiers change or new items, abilities, moves, or Pokemon become available in the middle of a round, the changes will take effect in the following round. There will be an announcement in the relevant round if this occurs.

New Rules

Activity Decisions / Coin Flips: We are changing the rules for activity / coin flip decisions for this tournament. In the event that there is an uncompleted match at the deadline, it will be coin flipped unless one or both of the players involved in the match specifically request an activity win and explain sufficiently why they deserve to win over their opponent. Attempting to schedule a battle is required in order to receive the win by activity. To make it clear that you are requesting an activity win when you post, you must open your post with "Activity Win Request" in bold.

I contacted my opponent on the 27th, one day after the round was posted and told him my timezone. He responded on the 30th but did not indicate his timezone. I replied back asking for a timezone on the 1st of December, and he never replied. On the 7th, I VMed him again asking whether he could battle on the weekend, and yet again he didn't respond. I deserve the activity win because my opponent ignored my attempts to schedule our battles.

If you believe your opponent is making an unfair request and that they don't deserve the activity win over you, you can either make your own request or quote their post and explain why they don't deserve it. You should try to make your activity win request posts at least 24 hours before the deadline to give your opponent a reasonable opportunity to contest it with their own activity win request.

Timer / Disconnection Rules: Timer Clause will be strictly enforced for this tournament. This means that the normal disconnection rules found in the Tournament Rules, Guidelines, and Information thread do not apply. If a player disconnects and does not reconnect to their battle before the timer expires, they lose that particular game. This doesn't necessarily mean they lose the entire best-of-three set.

Known Bugs
For informational purposes, those who play their games on Showdown should be aware of the known bugs listed here.

Formerly known by the equally unintelligible "brksocsc," US west member myzozoa is looking to win this tournament and prove once and for all that his skill extends beyond the realm of Deo-D HO teams. His opponent, on the other hand, is unintelligible in all but name: known to many as "Australia's accident," Heist uses two user accounts to conceal his Pokemon addiction from his snoopy friends, and it's only a matter of time before he uses two Smogon user accounts to conceal his lack of skill from the community. This is a set you will not want to miss, so make sure to pester Heist for the logs afterwards. ~ Eo Ut Mortus

Rewer vs Delta 2777

The man who lifts, Delta "Machamp" 2777, was a strong contender during the last OST: he ended up toppling the overwhelming favorite, Krack, before losing to some random by the name of Blue_Star. His Brasilian defeat may come a round earlier this year. Rewer may have been a former second string sub of the Smog Frogs, but given that they are projected to be SPL's #5 team, he must be more than just alright. Will his brief practice experience with Masterclass and sogeking propel him to victory? Or will Delta hold the door to defeat open for him...twice? ~ Eo Ut Mortus

Bad Ass vs [K-12] The Madchine

On one side of the arena in this matchup we have Bad Ass, a man of many names, many identities, and who has quite possibly had sexual relations with a moose on at least one occasion. Bad Ass, true to his name, has also at one point consumed a hot dog about a dozen times the size of Eo Ut Mortus’s penis (so a 24-inch hot dog), which is forever his claim to fame. Standing in the other corner is the mad machine K-12, the mysterious Spanish presence who thrashed his way through many top notch players in last year’s SPL. Will Bad Ass utilize the might of Geoff the hotdog to achieve victory, or will K-12 finally end his run through this tournament? ~ windsong

Deadline

The deadline for Round 3 will be 11:59PM EST on the 10th of January, 2013. Any matches not played by this time will be coin flipped unless one or both players have submitted a request for an activity win.

I was away until now so i couldn´t request this earlier
my opp vmed me dec the 19th and said that he was my opponent
i replied and told him, at which times i would be availaible
his answer came in a private message on dec the 25th - 6 days after my vm
my last activity was on dec the 24th which means that we were both inactive for 6 days so i can´t see the legitimacy him getting the activity win
an extension would be fine for both of us i guess